Reviewer Guidelines

Peer review is a cornerstone of scholarly publishing and a professional responsibility that carries significant weight. Reviewers for JPMT are expected to provide an objective, constructive, and timely assessment of the scientific, methodological, and ethical quality of the manuscripts they evaluate. Your role is not to rewrite the manuscript or to demand adherence to personal preferences, but to offer a fair evaluation of whether the work meets the journal’s standards for rigor, originality, and relevance.

When you accept an invitation to review, you commit to treating the manuscript as a confidential document and to completing your assessment within the agreed timeframe. If you cannot meet the deadline, or if you feel unqualified to evaluate a particular aspect of the work, please inform the editorial office promptly so that alternative arrangements can be made. If you suspect a conflict of interest, you should decline the invitation or consult the editor before proceeding.

Your review should address the following dimensions: the originality and significance of the research question; the soundness of the study design and methodology; the appropriateness of the statistical or computational analyses; the clarity and completeness of the reporting; the ethical compliance of the study; and the extent to which the conclusions are supported by the data. Where relevant, you should also consider whether the manuscript complies with recognized reporting guidelines for its study type. You are not expected to verify every detail, but you should identify any major concerns that could undermine the validity of the findings.

Comments to authors should be constructive, specific, and respectful. Please separate your comments into major and minor points, and avoid personal criticism or dismissive language. You may also provide confidential comments to the editor, particularly if you have concerns about ethical issues, suspected misconduct, or matters that you do not wish to raise directly with the authors. Your recommendation—whether to accept, request minor or major revision, or reject—should be based on the scientific merit of the work and its fit with the journal’s scope. Remember that peer review is advisory; final editorial responsibility rests with the appropriate editor.

Confidentiality

Manuscripts submitted to JPMT are confidential documents. As a reviewer, you must not share the manuscript, its data, figures, supplementary files, or any related editorial correspondence with anyone outside the review process. This includes colleagues, students, and institutional staff who are not formally involved in the review. You must not use any information obtained through peer review for your own advantage or for the advantage of others, and you must not allow the manuscript to influence your own competing work.

You should not contact the authors directly about the manuscript. All communication regarding the review should go through the editorial office. If you wish to consult a colleague about a specific technical aspect of the manuscript, you must first obtain permission from the editor, and any such consultation must be conducted under the same confidentiality obligations.

After you have submitted your review, you should delete or destroy any copies of the manuscript you have made, unless the journal’s policy or applicable law requires otherwise. If you are asked to review a revised version of the manuscript, the same confidentiality rules apply.

AI and Peer Review

The use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies in peer review raises serious concerns about confidentiality, originality, and accountability. Reviewers must not upload any part of a manuscript—including text, data, figures, tables, or supplementary materials—into public or commercial AI systems, including large language models, chatbots, or other generative tools. Doing so could compromise the confidentiality of the manuscript and violate the trust that authors place in the review process.

You must not use AI tools to generate your review, to analyze the manuscript, or to draft comments. Your assessment must reflect your own expert judgment and professional expertise. If you use AI-assisted tools for language editing or for checking your own writing, that is permissible, but you remain fully responsible for the content of your review. You should not rely on AI to identify ethical issues, statistical errors, or methodological flaws; these require human expertise and contextual understanding.

If you have any questions about whether a particular tool or use case is permissible, please contact the editorial office before proceeding. JPMT reserves the right to request that reviewers disclose any use of AI-assisted technologies in the preparation of their review.

Conflicts of Interest

A conflict of interest exists when a reviewer’s personal, professional, financial, or institutional circumstances could reasonably be perceived to influence their assessment of a manuscript. Conflicts can be financial (e.g., holding a patent, receiving funding from a company with an interest in the work), professional (e.g., being a close collaborator, a recent co-author, or a direct competitor), personal (e.g., a close friendship or a serious personal dispute), or institutional (e.g., working at the same institution as any of the authors). Even the appearance of a conflict can undermine confidence in the review process.

If you believe you have a conflict of interest, you must disclose it to the editorial office as soon as possible. In many cases, the editor will determine that the conflict is not significant enough to preclude review, but you should not make that decision on your own. If the conflict is substantial, you should decline the invitation to review. You must not review a manuscript if you have been a co-author with any of the authors in the past three years, if you work at the same institution, if you have a direct supervisory or mentoring relationship, or if you are engaged in a direct competitive relationship that could compromise your impartiality.

Editors and reviewers are also expected to recuse themselves from handling manuscripts in which they have a substantial personal, professional, institutional, financial, or competitive interest. If you are uncertain whether a particular relationship constitutes a conflict, please consult the editor. Transparency and honesty in declaring conflicts are essential to maintaining the integrity of the peer review process and the trust of the scholarly community.